News to know: Intel's server chips; Microsoft Mix; National broadband plan

Ed note: We're revamping News to Know to focus on a few key themes for each news day ahead. You can get the day's rolling posts via Twitter, RSS or email.

What's on tap for Tuesday, March 16, 2010:

Intel upgrades its Xeon server chips and really wants you to upgrade. For those slow pokes on single core servers---a third of the customer base---Intel is promising ROI in a mere 5 months. Rest assured that HP, IBM, Dell and others will be rolling out system refreshes too all in a move to get those data centers updated. Also see: Datacenter efficiency metrics remain a moving target Microsoft's Mix powwow is underway. The big news so far: Windows Phone 7 software is now available for developers to use. Mary Jo Foley, reporting from the show, shares five new things she learned about the Windows Phone 7 platform. And in the eye candy department see our gallery: A look at Windows Phone development (images)

Also at Mix, Microsoft will detail more nuggets about IE 9. In the meantime, it's working around the latest IE zero day.

The National Broadband Plan is unveiled today. Sam Diaz had the details of the executive summary and hopes for perpetual beta. Let's hope there's something to fix the coming wireless spectrum crunch. Google CEO Eric Schmidt cheered the plan.

Tim Bray joins Google. So it's your first day on Google's Android team. What do you do? You write a blog post noting your move and kicking Apple's iPhone in the teeth. Don't try this at your job, kids.

Cybercriminals are working hard to come up with new ways to make money. Dancho Danchev looks at what's happening with Mac OS X SMS ransomware and asks the question: is it hype or a real threat?